Post Your Best HDR Photo

coondogg wrote in post #7012503
Guess this is my new best, lol...

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OOOooooooooooooooo

shots from last weekend in tahoe 0,+/-2...processed in dynamic photo HDR...click for larger sizes

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com …goire/317853611​0/sizes/l/

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com …goire/317852884​4/sizes/l/

I've been reading through this thread with great interest. Here is my first proper attempt at HDR. I'm not a big fan of the fake HDR look so iIt took me a lot of playing around in Photomatix to achieve this. I think it was certainly worth the effort . Let me know what you guys think.

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^^ Sudeep, while there's lots of elements in the picture, an HDR is supposed to basically bring out the tonal ranges, in a scene. Your's is a tad bit on the dark side...especially towards the bottom of the frame...where it should be 'visible' at since it's an HDR. Otherwise, interesting effect, for it being handheld. What was your focal point? Just curious.

inthedeck wrote in post #7041625
^^ Sudeep, while there's lots of elements in the picture, an HDR is supposed to basically bring out the tonal ranges, in a scene. Your's is a tad bit on the dark side...especially towards the bottom of the frame...where it should be 'visible' at since it's an HDR. Otherwise, interesting effect, for it being handheld. What was your focal point? Just curious.

Hey Manish, thanks a lot for your comments. I think part of the problem was that in the pic above I was trying to use the HDR technique to primarily improve the look of a shot that I wanted to appear as non HDR (if that makes any sense). With the 3 exposures I had, there was no way I could have gotten the sky and clouds to look the way they came out in the above pic without using HDR (or some form of exposure blending). I still wanted it looking like a realistic sunset, and I did like that you could still make the buildings out (although I agree that they are a little too dark).

In the spirit of this thread I decided to go more the traditional HDR route with this pic and here is what I came up with
Wow! now that I compare the two pics side by side I really like this a lot more! I think I'm going to be playing with HDR a lot more! Thanks a lot Manish, I owe ya! As for the focus point, I actually just decided to wing it and focused on the furthest building that I could see. It seemed to work well in this shot but I really should have stopped down from f/3.5 (which is what I used for this pic)

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^^You're welcome. You don't owe me anything...hehe...exce​pt more attempts at HDR's, how's that?

One other thing to note, is the barrel distortion, at the edges. I'm assuming you used a fairly wide lens, at it's smallest focal length. When you shoot wide scenes, such as the one above, it's just something that occurs becuase of the lens. It's easily corrected, and will require a slight bit of cropping...but, you'd need something like PS to correct it. If you look at the buildings on either edge of the frame, you'll see how they turn in, ever so slightly. That is the result of what I am talkin' about.

I have one of NYC in the urban life and travel forum, from NYC. It experiences the same problem. Then, I corrected it, and it's now in my smugmug account, in the 'available for print' gallery. I'm sure the difference is 'hardly' noticeable, but, once you see them side by side, it becomes more apparent.

Cheers,
Manish.

Thanks Manish, I did notice the barrel distortion in this pic (as well as some other ones of mine). The kit lens seems to have a fair bit of barrel distortion at the wide-angle side. I'll try looking up online regarding correcting barrel distortion using photoshop. However with respect to HDR pics would you recommend correcting each of the initial pics by the same amount and then merging them or is it sufficient to just correct the final HDR image? Thanks for the help. I hope to visit NYC (I live 5 hours away) soon so that I can go snap happy .

As long as the alignment is correct, you should be OK with correcting just the merged version. If they alignment is off...forget it, nuke it, and start over!

I didn't want to cross post it, but, you may find an HDR of Downtown Jacksonville, Florida USA if you CLICK HERE.

Thanks, and nice shots above me...just be careful of that 'glow' in the saturation of bushes, and the like. It can 'easily' go overboard, neamik. I wonder what it would have looked like, if you had moved maybe 5-7 feet to the right, to incorporate those buildings back there. You've piqued my interests! Redo? Maybe some day?

Love the clouds, there, collin85.

Not my best but a good one !

Here's one I did recently at Somersby Falls.
Hope you enjoy.

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Here is one from the race tracl this past weekend

6 image Pano of Willow Springs main track trun #8. Each section merged then tonemapped in CS3 with ReDynamix plugin on ultracontrast. Then used photomerge in CS3 to stitch images.